Royals Smash Spitfires to Secure Top Spot
Jul 29 2013
Michael Carberry made his best Twenty20 score in seven years!
Kent Spitfires v Hampshire Royals
Friends Life t20
Monday 29 July
Canterbury
Summary: Hampshire beat Kent by 62 runs
Hampshire Royals: 185-6
Kent Spitfires: 123-9
Full Scorecard
Concurrent Table
Royals Team:
Carberry, Vince, Adams, McKenzie, Ervine, Dawson, Wheater, Mascarenhas, Wood, Briggs, Griffiths
Spitfires Team:
Bell-Drummond, Cowdrey, Billings, Stevens, Blake, Harmison, Jones, Coles, Davies, Claydon, Riley
Outstanding performances from Michael Carberry and Liam Dawson helped the Royals to a 62-run victory over the Kent Spitfires at Canterbury and, in so doing, claimed top spot for their side in the Friends Life t20 South Group.
Talk about hitting form at the right time; Carberry’s 83* was his second best Twenty20 innings ever and he looked every inch a batsman worthy of the IPL, BBL or any T20 league in the world as he lead the visitors to 185-6 off their 20 overs.
And a career-best Twenty20 return for Dawson of 4-19 off three overs (including three wickets in a single over) during the reply meant it was all the hosts could do to limp to 123-9 off their 20 overs.
It means the defending Champions already have an unassailable 15 points at the summit of the group and look set to continue the dominance they’ve enjoyed for the last five years in this competition.
Having won the toss, Hampshire elected to start with bat in hand for the first time in limited-overs cricket since last season’s FLt20 Final – a decision captain Dimitri Mascarenhas later explained as being in preparation for the knock-out stages should setting a total, rather than chasing one, be required.
And James Vince – so often the man who makes run-chasing look easy – looked equally comfortable here early on, creaming 18 runs off eight deliveries, including two consecutive sixes off Mitch Claydon, who was the Man of the Match in the reverse fixture... that’s some way to wrestle back the initiative! Vince, of course, was in a celebratory mood having, earlier in the day, committed his future to the county for another three seasons.
However, it was his fellow opener who would quickly steal the show. Carberry looked at ease playing all around the wicket, negotiated the spin of Adam Riley with no trouble at all and treated the bad-balls with such distain, you’d have thought they’d called him a nasty name. When brought together with Neil McKenzie (45) with the score on 43-2 in the fifth over, his power, combined with the elegance and subtlety of the South African’s stroke play, made for a delightful spectacle and the pair put on 94 for the third wicket – the latter leaving with his team in the healthy position of 137-3 in the 16th over (a run-rate of more than eight).
By that point, Carberry had already registered his half century (33 balls, seven 4s, one 6) with a neatly pulled maximum and might have had half an eye on his previous best (90 v Middlesex, scored in 2006) or even a century. But the England International is a man who plays for his team and, seeing Dawson spraying 17 off four balls in the last over, seemed quite content to watch on from the other end as his team set Kent an imposing 186 for victory.
Unlike Hampshire, the Spitfires appeared to feel their best hope of winning the match would be to keep wickets in hand early on, even if that meant playing circumspectly. But in the fifth over of the reply, the game turned as Mascarenhas (2-21) took two wickets for just a single run in his third over with the ball to see both openers back in the hutch and the hosts 28-2 compared to their guests’ 48-2 at the same stage.
Once again, the Spitfires steadied the ship as Darren Stevens (39) and Sam Billings (21) put on 60 for the next wicket but what would happen next completely knocked the wind out of their sails. Dawson, having gone for two sixes in a row off his first over, had the latter plucked out of the sky by Sean Ervine at mid off, before enticing the former into a top edge to his skipper at backwards square. Finally, off the last ball of the over, some smart stumping from Adam Wheater saw Alex Blake walking back to the pavilion for a duck and Kent were in dire straits on 89-5 (13 overs).
With the required run-rate already at nearly 15 and the opposition low in confidence the only real surprise in the six overs that remained was that the left-arm spinner wasn’t given the chance to complete his bowling allocation and claim only his third five-fer in any form of the game (though, in a moment of comedy, Kent’s Mark Davies was briefly shocked that his wicket hadn’t brought about the end of the game as he started shaking hands with his side only nine-down).
It was a light-hearted end to a match that, up until then, had been taken extremely seriously by the Royals despite having a home Quarter Final already in the bag. As for the group’s finale against Middlesex on Wednesday at The Ageas Bowl, Mascarenhas confirmed in his post match interview that his side would be equally as focussed on getting a win going into that match too, a sentiment echoed by Carberry. “For us” the opener said, “every game is a final from now on.” Let’s hope one of them really is!
Background
The Royals could barely have been in better form in the competition with only one loss to their name... however, that did come against Kent! With a fifth Quarter Final in as many years already under their belts, they were simply looking to gain the top spot their performances have merited since the first match of the campaign.
After a terrible start to the competition, the shock reverse at The Ageas Bowl had sparked a mini-revival in the Spitfires fortunes as they then went on to beat the Sussex Sharks by nine runs at Canterbury. However, the good results had proved too little too late and, already denied the prospect of progressing any further in the competition, the hosts had been using the FLt20 as an opportunity to experiment with youngsters and squad players.
Words: Simon Vincent
Images: LMI Photography